The Liebster Blog Awards

Sometime towards the end of last year, Matt Ewens nominated my blog for the Liebster Blog Awards. Yay! It humbled me, for this guy, Matt, who I hardly know, but who I met in a google plus writing group,  thought my blog is worth a read. You can see list of nominees here. http://mattrobertewens.wordpress.com/ There are rules for accepting the Liebster Blog Award. You can read them below. I have to accept the award by answering questions he has asked, and in turn nominate eleven blogs that I think are worth a read. Well, I’ll start by answering questions that Matt asked.

What is the meaning of life?

1. What’s the meaning of life to you, what’s the point?

When I was a little boy, going through pretty tough times and asking God that age old question, ‘Why did you create me?’, and asking my parents that timeless question, ‘Why did you produce me?’, I went to church one Saturday. We were taking Baptism lessons. The priest asked us that same question, what is life? And a boy, who had only one eye, stood up and gave an answer that has lived with me ever since. In the darkest of times, I hear his voice, sounding like the voice of God, saying, ‘Life is something that cannot be explained, but lived.’

2. What are you best at?
I guess I’m best at telling lies. Isn’t that what all writers do? They come up with these weird stories, and they will say, ‘It’s totally fiction. It’s not based on real life.’ And yet it is often based on their personal lives, for every story ever told has the emotional footprint of the person who told it. I do it all the time. Even when I’m writing my blog, which is supposed to be a factual thing, I’ll add a bit of lies here and there to spice things up. I once told someone that my blog is 90% truth, which is the truth, but I revel in the 10% lies that I put in, for that’s actually what makes the readers come back again and again. I think.

3. If you were captured by aliens and put into an arena and they used their power of divination to determine your greatest fear or the one creature/animal/monster fake or real – what would appear out of the shadows to face you?
A woman. 😀

4. Favourite gig of all time?
My first job, when I was barely a month out of university. It took me to a world I had never been to before. I not only visited, and for the first time in my life slept in, a village, but I met people living with AIDS, who were about to die. Just talking to them influenced my writing for the next few years.

5. How do you boil an egg?
I don’t boil eggs. I swallow them raw. It’s supposed to be good for creativity. Ah, so now you know where I get all those crazy ideas from. You see, an egg is like a seed, like life itself. If you cook it, you destroy that life. If you swallow it raw, another life will grow inside you, and materialize in the form of a story. 

6. If you could magic your mind into the body of any living human being on planet Earth, who would it be and why? (keep in mind this is a lifetime swap there’s no going back)
A Pinoy bombshell called Reiza, my fiancee, so I can know what makes her tick, how to love her without making her go off the edge in a cloud of anger.

7. If a clown jumped out of a van in the street while you were minding your own business and handed you a big pot of pink paint and a big brush and said ‘You must paint that house over there pink, if you do then you’ll get this,’ he shows you the biggest diamond you have ever seen in your life.
I wouldn’t paint it, for I’d know the diamond is a fake and the clown is setting me up for a prank.

I actually have two. Dek ngor, an Acholi dish, and the Chinese style sweet-n-sour fish.

9. If you were suddenly transformed or transmogrified into a great bowl along with your equivalent selves from every country in the world and you were asked by GOD to compete against each other in a variety of sports and tests, what self from what country would win and why?
My East African self would win, because it wouldn’t be an impostor like the others 🙂

10. Best thing you’ve done for another human being?
That’s a tough one. People tend to think I’m selfish.

Geeta Nair, “Fabrics of Life”, http://geetaavij.wordpress.com/
Jairam Mohan, “Mahabore’s Mumblings”, http://mahabore.wordpress.com/
Joel Benjamin Nevender, “Hope Never Runs Dry” http://nevender.blogspot.com/
Jyothi Nair, “Jyothi’s Day Out”, http://jyothisdayout.com/
Mildred Apenyo, “Apeny Writers.” http://apenyo.com/
Reiza S Dejito, “Wander if you Must.” http://www.wander-if-you-must.com/
Simon Kaheru, “Scare a Hero.” http://skaheru.wordpress.com/
Sophie B Alal, “Deyu African.” http://deyuafrican.com/
Susan Dusterhoft, “Today’s Writing Woman”, http://todayswritingwoman.blogspot.com/

I wish I could go on and on, and it’s been hard to limit my selection to only these eleven. I should make another much longer list later. They are all worthy reads. Well, congs to you eleven. And happy blogging!

The rules for accepting the Liebster Blog Award:
1- List eleven random facts about yourself.
2- Nominate eleven other bloggers.
3- Notify these bloggers.
4- Ask eleven questions that the bloggers must answer upon accepting the award.
5- Answer the eleven questions that you were asked when you were nominated.
6- Link back to the person who nominated you (mention him/her and include his/her blog link).